Hemlock Cliffs Winter of 2014

[indianahiker]

In January of 2014, some friends and I went up to Hemlock Cliffs in the Hoosier National Forest for a quick morning hike. Hemlock Cliffs is located in southern Indiana between the towns of St. Croix and Taswell. The area is a small box canyon and you wouldn't think you were in Indiana unless you knew better. the canyon has two creeks that traverse down through the two sections of it and several more as you go off trail to the east from the main trail. The area also has several seasonal waterfalls which we knew would be flowing because we had had some wet weather before we went and it was extremely cold. There is a main loop trail of 1.2 miles with several unofficial trails that spur off it making it a popular place for people to backpack at because these spur trails go for miles, one of the outer spur trails is about 15 miles in length but you better have good navigational skills as they are not blazed or marked in any fashion. As a side note friends and I backpack and rappel in this area quite often so we know it pretty well and the tallest cliff (approx 130ft) in the Hoosier National Forest is in this area but you have to know how to get to it to see it; it's nowhere near the main trail. Back to our trip this particular January day, my friend had to work afternoons so we only had a little time here and it takes us about 45 minutes to get there from where we live. We got there and to our great delight that the waterfalls were "flowing" plus we got an extra treat with this trip, did I mention it was cold.

I may have forgotten to mention it was cold, ..12 degrees F with a windchill around -10. Oh how much fun it was!